If you have Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade you probably find the new economy to be a massive change from the base game.

If you don't have Crusade, well, yea, you're a bad person. Like, literally (not figuratively) history's greatest monster. Go get it now HERE.

TRICK #1: Your Citizens are your most valuable resource

Every 10 turns you get a citizen. What you do with them is how you control your empire.

You see my production here? It's huge. How did that happen? I invested 2 scientists, an entrepreneur and a worker.

TRICK #2: Adjacency Bonuses matter a LOT:

On the picture above, my Space Elevator only provides 2 normally. Put 3 factories around it and it goes up to 5. That's more than a doubling.

Back in the base game, you didn't get "hubs" until later. In Crusade, it's the other way around. You start with hubs and then can put things around them to really get your production to take off.

See my research? It's 35 per turn! It started at 3. How did I get the 10X increase? By default, the computer core only gives +1 research. But by putting it next to my capital and 2 research centers I got it to 5.

Then, my research centers, like my factories, only do a little bit on their own but when they're adjacent they give huge bonuses. Then add two scientists and boom. The 10 points from my population with +5 from the computer score gets doubled by the adjacencies.

Why didn't the base game have such a cool setup? Because the AI wouldn't have been able to handle it. When GalCiv III shipped, we assumed 2 CPU cores. For Crusade, we targeted 4 CPU cores (you reading this probably have 4 or more). That means the AI can split out its analysis while you take your turn and do much more complex decision making than before.

Ok, so I am confused. Brad (or any other knowledgeable), please clarify!

How do you get 10 base production from 11 population?

I thought that base production was the square root of population: therefore about 3.3 from 11 pop. I haven't come across any way to increase base production other than population. Is there later tech or something I don't know about?

I have achieved research >30 on two planets. One was similar to your example here except I had the comp. core next to an anti-matter plant (+5 adjacency) and on the second planet I had a merc. providing the +research. In both cases, the contribution from population was not the biggest provider.

So what am I missing?

PS I second the idea from other threads that Leaders are way powerful. Providing +1 to all planets is Huge! Even in a small empire. Partly this is true because that 1 research is massive when you have nothing apart from population to generate raw research. So this issue fits right in with the above: what have I missed?